Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Streetsblog has the text of a letter from Assemblywoman Millman in response to inquiries about her stance on congestion pricing. The full text is available here.

Some people view this as anti-congestion pricing. I disagree; I think it's perfectly reasonable to express some reservations about the plan's impacts.

Let me be clear: I support congestion pricing 100%. However, implementing the program is going to have impacts, and those impacts must be addressed. For our stretch of Brooklyn, which already has congestion at rush hour, we can expect significantly increased ridership on the F line due to the plan and to continued population growth.

The MTA can cheaply and quickly improve subway service for a wide swath of Brooklyn by reinstating express service on the F and extending the V into Brooklyn. If I were Joan Millman (a man can dream, can't he?) I would support the mayor's plan but demand that the F & V line improvements be made concurrently or before.